ICAS Writing
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Subject Guide
Participants
• From Primary 3 to Form 5 students (Year 4 to Year 12 students)
Task Type: Narrative
Write a narrative, the task requires students to write one or two of the following aspects or stages of a narrative:
• the beginning of a narrative
• the complication or event in a narrative
• a description of a setting
• a description of a character
• the conclusion of a narrative.
Task Type: Persuasive
Write a persuasive text, the task requires students to write a text that persuades. For example:
• a review
• an advertisement
• a letter to a council
• a formal argument
• an opinion piece for a newspaper
• a campaign manifesto.
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Question Types
• One of two forms of writing (narrative or persuasive) will be assessed.
Marking criteria
• Marked on a common, criterion-referenced scale
• Up to twelve marking criteria may be used. These may be divided into domains or sections, including genre, textual grammar and syntax/punctuation.
• Utilises double marking
(refer to ICAS Writing written and online report guideline and ICAS Writing website)
Areas Assessed
• Genre:
Marking criteria in the skill area of Genre assess the ways in which the text has been structured and specific stylistic and vocabulary choices that have been made to achieve the writer’s purpose and the engagement of the reader. The best texts will demonstrate a creative and skilful integration of structure and language choices in order to do this.
• Textual Grammar
The features of Textual Grammar which may be assessed include the correct use of tense and the ways in which tense can be manipulated to strengthen the writing; the correct use of pronouns, conjunctions and connectives to assist the reader in following the text; and the ability to correctly structure a variety of different types of sentences, including complex sentences, for effect.
• Syntax/Punctuation
The skill area of Syntax/Punctuation includes marking criteria which assess correct use of sentence grammar including subject-verb agreement and the correct use of prepositions, articles and plurals, and punctuation.
2025 ICAS Writing Framework
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Please note that the ICAS Writing tests require the installation of the Janison Replay application. Click here to download.
For more details, please visit the Technical Requirements page.
Sample Question
2025 ICAS Assessments Structure - Writing
Teachers and parents’ evaluation
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